Originally Posted by
Fanjet
Delta once had two HND slot pairs when everyone else had no more than one. They abused one of those to the point of having it be taken away from them.
That is not factually correct. AA contested DL's SEA-HND slot (for operating at seasonal frequencies), but at the end the DOT still awarded DL the SEA-HND authority albeit with the condition that DL operate the service daily year-round. If the DOT was interested in punishing DL for its use of the HND slots till then, it could have simply taken the slot away then and then awarded to AA. Instead, it continued to say that the slot should be kept for the SEA service (different gateway serving different area of the country, competitive balance, etc.) but that it had to be operated in the spirit of the original award (i.e., year-round, etc.). Eventually DL returned the slot to the DOT because it considered the conditions too onerous, but the decision to keep or drop was ultimately left in Delta's hands.